Drumroll, please: Almost two years after radio station and billboard company Clear Channel Communications began exploring strategic options, its $17.9 billion takeover finally closed on Wednesday.

The deal, slowed by legal battles in two states and negotiations to lower the purchase price, became a symbol of the buyout industry’s glory days and the subsequent struggles of the credit crunch.

Clear Channel had agreed to be acquired by private equity firms Thomas H. Lee Partners and Bain Capital Partners last year. The market quickly changed and credit to fund the acquisition became more costly and difficult to secure.

The buyout firms had agreed to buy Clear Channel for $39.20 per share, but were forced to file lawsuits in New York and Texas to ensure that a syndicate of six banks would still fund the deal. In May, the bank syndicate, the private equity buyers and Clear Channel struck a deal to lower the price to $36 per share.

And now Clear Channel’s stock will cease trading at the end of the day. Phew!

Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio also closed their merger this week after struggling for 526 days, or 17 months, to gain regulatory approval. The new Sirius XM Radio, with more than 18.5 million subscribers, is now the second-largest radio broadcaster after Clear Channel.

The next marathon wait? Shareholders of BCE Inc, the Canadian telecommunications company, must wait until Dec. 11 for the long-awaited $34.1 billion deal to close. Of course, that’s more than five months from now — who knows what could happen?

Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group may invest about $926 million in British bank Barclays, people familiar with the matter told Reuters, the latest in a string of subprime-hit Western lenders increasingly turning to Asia for funding. Japan’s third-largest bank is also considering a business alliance in Asia with Barclays, which is expected to raise about $8 billion from sovereign wealth funds and other investors and then offer shareholders the right to buy on the same terms. If Sumitomo Mitsui opts to invest it would give the Japanese bank a stake of just over 2 percent. Up to five outside investors are also expected to participate, and backers may include existing Singapore-based sovereign wealth fund Temasek and China Development Bank, plus the Qatar Investment Authority.

Steve Ballmer insisted Microsoft will not seek to make a spate of other Internet acquisitions (Facebook, we’re looking at you) in the wake of its failed bid for Yahoo, according to the Financial Times. “People don’t understand what they’re talking about,” Ballmer said. “At the end of the day, this is about the ad platform. This is not about just any one of the applications.” Meanwhile, over at Yahoo, a spate of executives are reported running for the hills, just as the company is trying to justify its decision to go it alone and to repel Carl Icahn’s proxy fight. Among the departed: Flickr co-creator Stuart Butterfield, whose bizarrely hilarious resignation letter could best be summed up as: “There Will Be Tin.”

The fate of the world’s largest leveraged buyout hangs in the balance ahead of Friday afternoon’s decision by the Supreme Court of Canada on whether BCE treated its bondholders unfairly in agreeing to a $34.8 billion ($34.5 billion) takeover. Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, with U.S.-based private equity firms Providence Equity Partners, Madison Dearborn Partners and Merrill Lynch Global Private Equity, are offering C$42.75 a share to take BCE, parent of Bell Canada, private.

More Deals of the Day:

** France Telecom declined to comment on a report in French paper Les Echos that it might be ready to make new concessions to improve its $41 billion cash-and-share offer for rival TeliaSonera.

** Malaysia’s second-largest lender, CIMB Bank, has agreed to buy a 42 percent stake in Thailand’s BankThai for about 5.9 billion baht ($177 million), the Bank of Thailand said on Friday.

** France’s leading sugar producer Tereos abandoned plans on Friday to bid for the sugar business of Danish food group Danisco, saying it would instead look for alternative acquisitions.

** Private equity firm Bain Capital will launch a $445 million bid to buy out Japan’s D&M Holdings Inc, the maker of Denon audio equipment, from U.S. buyout firm Ripplewood and the other shareholders.

** Australian-listed miner Indophil Resources NL said it had received a A$488 million ($465 million) bid that trumped a hostile offer from Xstrata Plc, and recommended shareholders take it.

** South Korean food group Dongwon said it was in talks to buy the StarKist seafood business from Del Monte Foods Co, sending shares of its key units higher.

** AviChina Industry & Technology Co Ltd said its controlling shareholder, China Aviation Industry Corporation II, was proposed to merge with China Aviation Industry Corporation I.

** Hynix Semiconductor Inc, the world’s No. 2 memory chip maker, said it would buy a 2 percent stake in Taiwan-based chip design house Phison Electronics Corp.

** Investment firm Guiness Peat Group Ltd said it had reached its target 35 percent stake in New Zealand insurance and fund management company Tower Ltd.

** Ithaca Energy Inc said it has received an unsolicited non-binding offer from Endeavour International Corp. The offer consists cash and shares at an indicative price of $3.25 per Ithaca share, it said.

** Norwegian offshore driller Prosafe Production sold its 30.1 percent stake in peer Teekay Petrojarl to U.S.-listed shipping group Teekay Corp for $258 million.

** Vienna’s bourse submitted the highest bid for a majority stake in Slovenia’s stock exchange, outbidding Greek bourse operator Hellenic Exchanges, the Greek bourse said on Friday. In a bourse filing, Hellenic Exchanges said its binding offer for Slovenia’s stock exchange was not the highest.

** The European Commission restarted on Friday its review of plans by Itema to buy specialised equipment used in textile production from Barco of Belgium.

Banks financing the $34.8 billion private equity buyout of BCE have been hammering away all weekend to win higher interest rates, tighter loan restrictions and stronger protections that far exceed the original terms, according to the New York Times. Citing people on both sides of the transaction, the paper said talks began to fray late on Friday but lasted all weekend. “It’s patently obvious that the banks have no intention of closing the deal,” said one executive who read the revised terms. Investors have long worried that the massive private equity buyout might be repriced, delayed or abandoned altogether. Looming over the discussions is the spectre of the Clear Channel deal, in which some of the very same lenders also tried to back out, producing an ugly tangle of court cases that was only resolved last week.

Microsoft said it proposed an alternative deal to Yahoo rather than a full acquisition, but a person who knows the mind of Carl Icahn, the man driving trying to unseat Yahoo’s board, said the move was likely to prompt the billionaire investor to nudge Yahoo back toward Google. This source isn’t just familiar with the matter, but has a taste for rustic allusions: “Microsoft is trying to get the milk without buying the cow, and if you look at Icahn’s history, he has never been used that way.” Microsoft did not clarify what that alternative deal might be.

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg stressed his company’s independent spirit, after a report said the social networking site might be sold to software giant Microsoft, which is hunting for ways to beef up its Internet business. “You can tell, from our history and what we’ve done, that we really wanted to keep the company independent, by focusing on building and focusing on the long-term,” Zuckerberg told Reuters while in Japan to launch a Japanese language version of Facebook. Microsoft already has a small stake and the Wall Street Journal said this month the software giant, with the Yahoo deal in limbo, had approached Facebook to gauge its interest in a full takeover.

U.S. diversified manufacturer Manitowoc has increased its bid for British kitchen equipment maker Enodis to $2.1 billion to trump a rival offer. Manitowoc, which makes cranes and restaurant equipment, said it was offering 294 pence a share for Enodis, topping an agreed bid of 282 pence a share from U.S. rival Illinois Tool Works. The offer from ITW beat an earlier bid of 260 pence a share from Manitowoc. Enodis, which makes fryers for fast food groups such as McDonald’s and Burger King, will also pay an interim dividend of 2 pence a share.

Other deals of the day:

* The direct banking arm of Dutch financial services group ING Group is offering 416 million euros ($644 million) in cash for Germany’s Interhyp to expand its global business.

* France’s PSA Peugeot Citroen said it would invest between 300 million euros and 350 million euros ($467.9-545.9 million) in a Russian joint venture with Japan’s Mitsubishi Motors Corp.

* The Czech government will demand at least 100 billion crowns ($6.2 billion) from the winning bidder for Prague Airport, Finance Minister Miroslav Kalousek said in a newspaper interview.

* Cyprus Trading Corp agreed to buy up to 50 percent of local mobile telephone operator Areeba Ltd from South Africa’s MTN, CTC said.